Fox switches; will show at 10 Vikings-Browns

Notes, thoughts and assorted cheap shots while trying not to laugh too hard at the NFL “relaxing” its blackout policy to allow affected games to be shown online — at midnight! How magnanimous of them.

•I was all set to criticize Fox and KSWB Channel 5/69 for showing the Dallas-Tampa Bay game here at 10 a.m. Sunday instead of the BrettFavres at Cleveland, but then Fox decided to switch. I've got to think someone noticed that ESPN's most-watched preseason game ever was Vikings-Texans last week, and I don't think people were tuning in to watch Visanthe Shiancoe.

Vikings-Browns — with Thom Brennaman and potential star analyst Brian Billick announcing — originally was scheduled to reach 15 percent of the country. Now it's going to 40 percent.

Fox's 1:15 p.m. game, scheduled to reach 85 percent of the country, including San Diego, is Redskins-Giants.

•As usual, the CBS schedule begins with only one game (due to the U.S. Open), and it's hard to get excited about watching Baltimore clobber Kansas City. I understand the reasoning — the Chargers play the Ravens next week and the Chiefs are in the AFC West — but Dolphins-Falcons figures to be a much better game. Heck, I'd rather see Jets-Texans, with Mark Sanchez's NFL debut.

•NBC, which started its schedule last night, has a good one at 5:20 p.m. Sunday with Chicago and everyone's favorite ex-Broncos quarterback playing at Green Bay.

•ESPN will begin with what's become a traditional “Monday Night Football” doubleheader, starting at 4 p.m. with Patriots-Bills and concluding at 7:15 with Chargers-Raiders. Mike Greenberg, Mike Golic and Steve Young call the latter game, which also will be available on KFMB Channel 8.

•Fortunately for us Time Warner subscribers, NFL Network won't start showing games until Nov. 12. But don't get your hopes up. Commissioner Roger Goodell said this week on an
NFL.com
chat: “We don't expect to reach a deal with them prior to the start of the NFL Network season.”

•Last night marked the beginning of the first season without John Madden in the booth since the early '80s. Madden said recently he wasn't retired, only that he's not broadcasting anymore.

“I've never sat back and relaxed in my life,” he said.

He plans to watch every game in the sound stage at his Northern California office, where he had
nine
63-inch TVs installed. And he knows he won't lack for company.

“There's always going to be a few people because I'm going to feed 'em,” he said. “You have that combination of food and nine 63-inch televisions, you're not going to be alone.”

•Univision San Diego will televise the Chargers' only Spanish-language television show, “En Contacto Con Los Chargers,” on Sunday mornings at 8 a.m., starting this weekend. The 30-minute weekly program will be hosted and produced by Jorge Villanueva, the Spanish voice of the Chargers since 1994.

Ratings corner

•San Diego has ranked near the top of ESPN2's top markets during the U.S. Open, and nothing changed Wednesday during coverage of the
Melanie Oudin
and
Roger Federer
matches. The five-plus hours averaged a 3.8 Nielsen rating here, more than double ESPN2's 1.8 national rating.